This story was submitted by a member of the Spiritual Changemakers Community.
I remember the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia as the moment when I started to take an interest in human rights issues. This historic moment was a factor of change that I still believe in. Now, more than ten years later, I am certain that the human rights and well-being of the Tunisian people are completely linked to environmental issues and climate change, especially with daily challenges.
I started to really notice the environmental challenges facing Tunisia, such as water scarcity and drought, and understand how they contribute to economic and social problems in my country. I work today on all issues related to environmental rights and development also based on human rights and individual freedoms. I did two masters, one in environmental geology and one in environmental law, and I am currently doing a thesis in organic waste management. My passion and my struggles led me to the radio, where I did a radio show named ECO FRIENDLY on Radio Misk in Tunisia every Sunday on climate and environmental issues with the aim of raising awareness and contributing to a change towards a more eco-responsible attitude. Every episode is dedicated to a different topic, like plastic pollution or environmental education, and features guests who have unique perspectives on those topics.
I believe that we young people are the real world leaders for a better and sustainable world. I am more than ever engaged in various initiatives for the protection of the environment, such as the EARTH'na collective, which has drawn up a universal periodic report on environmental rights submitted to the Human Rights Council in March 2022 dealing with the situation of rights in Tunisia while proposing recommendations to improve legislation with the support of the foundation German Friedrich Ebert. In 2022, I was selected by UNDP Climate among the five young leaders of the Arab world, giving us hope in the fight against climate change.
I continue my fight for a greener, sustainable, and responsible country; I will soon launch a collective around climate justice to help the local population affected by climate change and global warming and prepare a new artistic project, a documentary that aims to highlight the different actors who work on environmental and climate issues in the different regions of Tunisia, from the North to the South of the country. Through this documentary, I seek to popularize and generalize environmental scientific information to the general public by showing the work of the chosen characters. The Earth is our heritage. We only have one, and we must protect it for future generations.